I always begin my class with a warm-up. If we are beginning a new unit, I have access to clips online that relate the objective to real life. The students love to watch these clips. The problem is that our Internet does not work most of the time. These clips do not load. I need another plan.
Our school is a small school in the mountains of Colorado.
It is a beautiful place to live and work. The Internet is a problem though. Due to our location our bandwidth can't handle our needs. We have many students taking online classes, because we can't offer many choices because of our size. What happens is that students can't view video clips, or these clips load very slowly. Our students are technologically savvy. As many other teens of today, they are digital learners. They need to see connections to real life when it comes to the subject they are learning. We are a relatively poor district. Our families are hard working people. Our district does not have extra funding to spend on items such as this.
My Project
The connection between science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) is crucial. As a mathematics teacher, I need to show my students the connection between these subjects, and what they are learning. There are many great resources online. I can't use any of them because they do not load properly. I can't depend on them loading, and I can't waste time waiting for them to load. The problem is that the bandwidth at our school can't meet the needs of our school, and this problem won't be fixed any time in the near future. My students need to see and use these resources now. I will use these STEM DVD clips to relate the learned material to the real world.
The students of today learn differently.
They do not just accept things as true. They have a need to see it. These DVDs connect math to real life. It will make what students learn in my classroom relative. I also hope that it will help them make connections to careers that may excite them!
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Brady and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.